Ukraine Trip Five

This is a travel biography about a journey to Ukraine in May and June 2015. Highlight of the tour was a road trip to Mariupol and being taken to the embattled town of Shyrokyne by members of the Azov Regiment. Cities visited: Kyiv, Boryspil, Kremenchuk, Dneprodzerzhinsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Mariupol, Shyrokyne and other towns and villages.

Insane Ukraine is a realistic and fun Ukraine travel guide that offers rare and fair insights and tips from a local perspective. It introduces you to the country, which by all means can look rather odd at first. Be ready for some unexpected adventures, funny misunderstandings and warm reception from locals while learning to travel in Ukraine in a smart way, so that you will leave with nothing but positive memories and experiences.From the must-see cities to some pretty special places only locals know about, this Ukraine guidebook will give you a good idea of which places to visit on your trip to Ukraine, where to stay and how to get around. But more importantly, it addresses the Q&A's that everyone has on their mind: is it safe to travel to Ukraine alone, is it safe to visit for a person of color, how to stay away from trouble, how to book accommodation and use taxis, where to withdraw foreign currency, and much more insider Ukraine travel advice!This Ukraine travel guide provides the exclusive local tips on how to behave, what to expect and how Ukraine works in general.

For decades, Ukrainian contacts with the outside world were minimal, impeded by politics, ideology, and geography. But prior to the Soviet period the country enjoyed diverse exchanges with, on the one hand, its Islamic neighbours, the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire, and, on the other, its central and western European neighbours, especially Poland and France. Thomas Prymak addresses geographical knowledge, international travel, political conflicts, historical relations with religiously diverse neighbours, artistic developments, and literary and language contacts to smash old stereotypes about Ukrainian isolation and tell a vivid and original story. The book treats a wide range of subjects, including Ukrainian travellers in the Middle East, from pilgrims to the Holy Land to political exiles in Turkey and Iran; Tatar slave raiding in Ukraine; the poetry of Taras Shevchenko and the Russian war against Imam Shamil in the High Caucasus; Ukrainian themes and the French writers Honoré de Balzac and Prosper Mérimée; Rembrandt's mysterious painting today titled The Polish Rider; and Ilya Repin's legendary painting of the Zaporozhian Cossacks writing their satirical letter mocking the Turkish sultan. Drawing together political and cultural history, languages and etymology, and folklore and art history, Ukraine, the Middle East, and the West is an original interdisciplinary study that reintroduces Ukraine's long-overlooked connections beyond Eastern Europe.

A trip to the Crimea with visits to Simferopol, Sevastopol, Alushta, Yalta and Shyroke.

There have been uncountable episodes in military history were rearguards, made up of merely a handful of brave and determined men, staved off superior enemy forces. The stories of most of them were soon forgotten, having been too small and insignificant to be noted in thick history books. But for the men who took part in them, these actions were momentous. They knew what likely fate awaited them. These measures were by their very nature usually desperate ones, and their outcome had almost always meant inevitable annihilation. But their love of their land, families and their camaraderie too, gave them the needed strength and determination to help them overcome their fear of the predictable fate: Death. Will the difficult operation described within these pages follow the same pattern?

This is the story of a most unusual hobo. His real name is Henry Best, but all those who know him call him by the moniker Lefty. In the beginning, Lefty is as emblematic a vagabond as thousands of others too, which roam the nation during the early parts of the twentieth century. That is, he was until time and a few particular experiences turn him into a remarkable hobo. He is a rather complicated character to begin with and also a shrewd and sharp one too. Lefty’s greatest enjoyment in life, besides traveling, is telling children tales of his travels while he and they are gathered around his campfires. Although it is great fun and entirely harmless, many adults frown upon this because they either see danger to their children from Lefty or generally dislike hobos. One day, Lefty discovers a box during one of his countless wanderings. It lay half-submerged in a creek and when he retrieves it he finds that he can’t open it because it is a so-called strong box. However, later on and with the help of some children friends, who brought him tools to his camp, he managed to get it open. To his and the children’s disappointment, the box only contains some pocket change and papers. He divides the money equally with the children and put the papers back into the box and hides it. Lefty went away after he got roughed up by some locals and travels thousands of miles, crisscrossing the nation. He goes through thick and thin during the following year. Lefty lives through numerous adventures and he is nearly killed a couple of times too. That strong box he had found will profoundly change his life and other people’s too. He just didn’t know it yet.

Tiffany lives in an age where a married woman’s duties are set in rigid conforms of a post-Victorian society. As a wife, she is the giver of her heart and her body and a servant to her husband and a nanny to his children. There is not much leeway for her to move outside of this sphere. Living in a small town doesn’t make things any easier; alas it makes some a bit more difficult. Tiffany’s life was never easy, but never really hard either. She was simply an average woman in an average town living an average life. Everything changes with her husband Dean’s alcohol abuse. As Dean’s addiction grows, so do her problems. Although she still loves him and does everything possible to recover their lost happiness, he sinks ever deeper into the pits of decadence. Early on already, even before Dean got worse, Tiffany’s mother Lilly encourages her daughter to leave Dean, seeing this as a lost marriage. Yet Tiffany refuses to give up. One day, a mine inspector named Jack Johnston comes to their little town. He meets Tiffany through her father, Brad, who is a foreman in one of the coal mines and knew Mr. Johnston from his job. Jack takes a liking to Tiffany. However, Tiffany remains steadfast and refuses to go into any romantic affairs, seeing that she is a married woman. When Jack is finished with his job, he returns to Pittsburg and life in Monongah goes on as usual. Dean’s drinking gets worse and he even begins to beat Tiffany. Lilly adamantly encourages her daughter to leave Dean, over and over again. Yet, despite the compounding troubles, Tiffany remains with him. One day a great disaster befalls the coal mines, killing many miners. Jack returns to town as an investigator, whose job it is to determine the cause of the great mine explosion. Because the little town is quickly filled with helpers coming from all over the nation, and the only hotel is soon booked out, Jack must reside in a private house. Fate wants it that he moves in with the Carmichaels … the house of Tiffany’s parents. This is a happy coincidence for Jack and a rather uncomfortable one for Tiffany. Will Jack be able to conquer Tiffany’s heart after all? Will Tiffany find a way to drop the heavy cloak of “social responsibility”, allowing herself to be swept away by him? How can Lilly help Jack in this?